The Tracker's Dilemma: (A Mandrake Company Science Fiction Romance)

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  “Frog left a lot of stumps on our runway,” Ankari said.

  “Nobody’s ever accused him of being considerate,” Striker said.

  “Not like you, eh?”

  “Exactly. I still can’t believe you chose the captain over me.” He wriggled his eyebrows at her.

  “Idiot,” Hemlock muttered.

  “You’re not supposed to say that about your section sergeant,” Tick said. “It’s not respectful.”

  “What if I call him Sergeant Idiot?”

  “That might work.”

  Jamie found a place to land the shuttle, nestled between stumps. “I hope the river doesn’t rise much with this rain. We might float away.”

  “Or sink,” Ankari muttered. “Lauren, aren’t you glad you came along?”

  Another vision flashed into Tick’s mind, and he didn’t hear her response. This time, he saw a dark shape flying above the canyon, passing over them briefly before zipping out of sight. Another ship.

  “We only brought three shuttles down from the Albatross, right?” Tick asked.

  Before anyone could answer him, the captain’s voice sounded over the comm. “Cut your engines and lights,” he said. “Thatcher got a glimpse of a larger ship on the sensors. We have company down here.”

  Jamie looked at Ms. Keys. “Were you expecting company?”

  “No.”

  Tick frowned at the back of Keys’ head, glimpsing a man in her thoughts for an instant, a man in a GalCon military uniform.

  “She’s lying,” Tick whispered.

  Hemlock nodded. “I agree.”

  Lauren sighed. “I’m not surprised.”

  She looked down at her hand. Her nails weren’t digging into Tick’s flesh now, but she hadn’t removed it, and she seemed surprised to find it clasping his.

  “Sorry,” she said and withdrew it.

  “I didn’t mind.” Tick smiled.

  Lauren frowned slightly and unbuckled her harness instead of returning his smile or meeting his eyes. He hoped that only meant she wasn’t pleased that she had needed someone for comfort, rather than that she found him to be strange and unappealing. The Buddha knew he felt strange, these days.

  “Check your gear, get something to eat, and be ready,” Mandrake said over the comm. “It should be dawn in an hour, and the weather satellite says the storm will abate about then.”

  Ms. Keys jumped to her feet, leaning toward the speaker. “Captain, we should leave immediately. If there’s another ship in the area, they could be trouble. Better to get in and out as soon as possible.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Mandrake asked.

  “I don’t know, but isn’t it likely they followed us?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I can’t know for certain, but my research will be of interest to many people, not simply those who helped fund your paycheck.”

  Tick could imagine the captain giving the comm station a flinty stare, one intended for Ms. Keys.

  “Hailey,” Lauren said, “you should tell them whatever you know. They’ll be able to protect you better that way.”

  “I don’t know anything. I only have suspicions.”

  Mandrake grunted. “I have suspicions too. We’ll wait until dawn.”

  “Captain.” Hailey lifted her chin. “As your employer, I must insist that we don’t delay.”

  Ankari and Jamie exchanged looks. Lauren’s lips flattened in disapproval. Tick waited to hear Mandrake’s response. He didn’t tap-dance for anyone, but he also usually did as the employer asked if it wouldn’t compromise the safety of his people. The company had tramped through the dark and the rain numerous times over the year. If the battle demanded it, that’s what they did. Besides, if that other ship they had glimpsed did plan to cause trouble, it might be best to do as Ms. Keys suggested, get in and out as quickly as possible.

  “Very well,” Mandrake said. “We’ll prepare to leave straight away. You’re coming with us into the storm, Ms. Keys. You’re the one with the map.”

  “Gladly.” Clearly not daunted by the rain or dark, or the animal howls that were starting to penetrate the hull of the ship, Ms. Keys jumped to her feet. The sparkle in her eyes promised she was ready to explore.

  Lauren strode straight into her lab, ready to stay put.

  Tick wished he could remain behind with her but knew the captain had brought him along for his tracking skills. The pilots would remain in the shuttles, and Mandrake would probably leave a few armed men to watch over the women, too, especially if there was another ship in the vicinity.

  Tick grabbed his mesh armor, a lighter version of the full-blown combat armor that the mercenaries wore in battle. This was light and flexible and wouldn’t slow them down as they marched through the jungle. Still, as he remembered his vision of that other ship, he wondered if they all should have brought the heavier-duty equipment. He shrugged and dug into his pack. Nothing to be done about it now, and since he didn’t have a helmet, he would trot out the latest cap he’d made, Libran ’coon fur, complete with a spiky ridge down the ringed tail. He’d added enough of a brim to keep the rain off decently.

  Striker and Hemlock tramped outside, rifles and pistols—and in Striker’s case, a grenade launcher—in hand. Tick pretended he was still getting ready, strapping his equipment on slowly, and poked his head through the lab curtain.

  “Dr. Keys?” he asked, even though he didn’t quite know what to say. She’d shot down his offer of an amorous relationship, after all. He ought to simply leave her be.

  She turned to face him, her dark hair up in a bun, as professional as always, but concern lurked in her eyes. The expression turned to bemusement when she took in his cap. “Yes?” was all she said.

  “Keep the door locked while we’re gone.” Tick tilted his head toward the hatch, the coon tail brushing his neck with the movement.

  “Oh, I planned on it.” A smile ghosted across her lips. “Keep an eye on my sister, will you? She’s impetuous and obsessed about her research. I can’t stand her, but she’s the only family I’ve got, and my mother would have been disappointed in me if I let her die.”

  Tick decided that a gentleman wouldn’t point out that Lauren seemed obsessed with her research too. She had already pulled up some data to peruse.

  “Family’s important.” He gave her a slight bow. “We’ll watch out for her.”

  Since he lacked anything more useful to say, he headed outside, into the wind, rain, and lightning.

  Chapter 6

  “Lauren?” Ankari asked softly, poking her head through the curtain to the lab.

  “Yes?”

  For once, Lauren didn’t mind being interrupted. She wasn’t getting much work done, not with the noises of the jungle emanating through the hull and thoughts of Tick and the other Grenavinians on her mind. Earlier, her sister had nudged her and pointed to Tick and Hemlock talking quietly in the back just as Hemlock had wriggled his fingers and his dice had rolled around on the deck by themselves. It had been no trick, she knew that. Not when Tick was also able to warn them of impending cliffs hidden from regular sight by the fog and from the sensors by an electrical storm.

  Before all this had started, Lauren had dismissed Hailey’s messages about ESP and abnormal brain scans, not having any reason to believe humans could affect their surroundings with some legendary sixth sense, a sense that people had wanted to believe in for millennia but which had absolutely no scientific evidence to support it. Even when tinkering with genetic engineering had been trendy, nobody had found a gene that turned on ESP abilities. There’d been no proof that such a thing was possible. Until now.

  Lauren wanted to create some controlled tests in order to duplicate results in a laboratory setting before she believed anything fully, but she’d seen those dice roll around with her own eyes. She could no longer scoff at the notion of mental powers.

  A part of her was excited, just as Hailey was, at this suggestion that the alien microflora could bring out latent abilities in h
umans, but a part of her felt uneasy too. She and her business partners had intended to market and sell the alien microflora once enough trials showed that they were safe and that they could, indeed, enhance human health, but this wasn’t the kind of health she’d had in mind. She could easily imagine unscrupulous people obtaining her strains and doing who knew what. Everything from cheating at gambling to reading the minds of enemy commanders. It could change the way the entire system interacted. For now, only the Grenavinians had been affected, but in time, it should be possible to isolate whatever genes were turned on in them that weren’t in other people and then to manipulate other humans to cause them to have similar results when the microflora were implanted.

  “Yes, if you could patrol around a bit, that would be excellent,” Ankari was saying to someone outside of the lab—Lauren had pulled the curtain for privacy.

  The hatch clanged shut, and Ankari stepped into the laboratory.

  “Hemlock, Sparks, and Gavrikov,” she said, naming the mercenaries the captain had left behind to keep an eye on the landing site. Lieutenant Frog and Commander Thatcher were also in their respective shuttles, should they need to pilot their craft somewhere quickly. Such as for an emergency pickup because Hailey led the mercenaries into trouble...

  “You sent them out in that?” Lauren waved toward the hull, the sound of rain pounding against it audible, along with howls from creatures in the canopy. Those raptors had screeched, as she recalled. Maybe she should check the network database and find out what other unpleasant inhabitants occupied the jungle side of the moon.

  “They’ll survive. I wanted to talk where we wouldn’t be overheard.” Ankari frowned in the direction of the hatch, then stepped into the small lab area. “With ears, anyway.”

  Lauren lifted her eyebrows.

  “Viktor and I had a chat last night.” Ankari leaned her hip against the lab counter, and Lauren stifled an urge to shoo her away and rub disinfectant over the area. It wasn’t as if she was running an experiment right now. “He wants to know what’s going on with Hemlock and Tick, and isn’t there another Grenavinian in your trial?”

  “Corporal Salix, yes. But he hasn’t reported any… mental changes, though he is up nearly ten IQ points, similar to the other subjects, Grenavinian and not.”

  “Is it possible things have been happening, and he just hasn’t told you?”

  “Certainly. I don’t interact with him regularly.”

  “You don’t interact with anyone regularly.” Ankari smiled. “Though I did notice you holding Tick’s hand during our landing.”

  “I wasn’t holding his hand. I mistook it for the armrest.”

  “I’m sure he’ll find that flattering. You know, he’s one of the more polite mercenaries. Have you ever considered...?”

  “We’ve had this discussion. I’m not interested in having sex with anyone.”

  “Because you had a bad experience with a professor, as I recall.”

  “It wasn’t bad. It just didn’t inspire me to engage in coitus with other men.”

  “Ah. That’s unfortunate, because I’ve seen Tick with his shirt off. I imagine he’d be much more interesting to touch than some scrawny professor. And if he can read minds now, maybe he’d make an attentive and thorough lover.”

  “He can’t read minds.” Probably. Lauren definitely needed to arrange some tests when they returned.

  Ankari sobered, her smile fading. “Viktor said you haven’t disclosed your test results in regard to his men, but that their section leaders have reported that they all had improvements on their physical evaluations, run times, marksmanship, and reaction time.”

  “Yes, that was the desired outcome and shouldn’t be a surprise to him. Many of their internal health markers have improved, as well. He should be pleased that his men’s mercenary talents have been enhanced.”

  “He’s not super chatty, as you may have noticed, but I’m reading between the lines that he’s concerned about superior skills breeding ambition and trouble. I don’t think he was worried too much when it was just physical, but he doesn’t want people reading his mind.”

  “Why, is he thinking thoughts his crew would find alarming?”

  “I’m sure he does from time to time, such as when he has to make choices that could save some men while sacrificing others. I think he’s concerned, too, about how far things might go. How powerful could these people become, Lauren? Are they going to have a few parlor tricks, or is this going to panic the government into marooning them on an ice planet the way they did those genetically engineered soldiers last century?”

  “If anything, I’d think the government would want to use them,” Lauren said.

  Ankari made a face. “I’m not sure that’s more appealing than marooning.”

  “I don’t know, either. Look, I truly have no idea. They’re the first humans to receive the treatment. This is all new to me too. If it helps, none of the rats started hurling each other across their cages with their minds.”

  Ankari snorted. “I’m thoroughly reassured.”

  A thump sounded against the shuttle wall just outside the lab.

  Lauren jumped. “That wasn’t the rain.”

  An eardrum-piercing howl came from the top of the shuttle. The squeal of laser fire came from outside.

  The hatch opened, and Ankari stepped out of the lab. More thumps and howls sounded. Lauren resisted the urge to crawl under the counter—barely. The only weapon she had was a tranquilizer gun, and she didn’t even know what drawer it was in. She didn’t have any laser pistols, nor did she have training in how to use them. She didn’t want that training. She just wanted to be left alone. She hated the field, damn it.

  Hemlock, Sparks, and Gavrikov pounded into the shuttle, water drenching their jackets and helmets. The rearmost man, Gavrikov, backed his way in, firing at dark shapes that swooped through the air beyond the hatch.

  “Lock us in,” he demanded.

  Hemlock lunged toward the button that controlled the hatch, but a winged creature streaked out of the darkness toward him, and he missed it, jerking his weapon toward his assailant instead. He and Gavrikov fired at the same time, blasting what looked like a giant furry bat with fangs. One crimson laser bolt hit it between the eyes. It yowled and tumbled from the air, smoke wafting from its head. Lightning flashed in the cloudy sky, revealing a whole flock of the winged creatures arrowing toward the shuttle.

  Ankari squeezed past the men and reached for the button, but the ramp started retracting before she touched it. Before anyone touched it. The smoking bat lay on the ramp, its wings drooping off either side. One wing caught in the closing mechanism, and the ramp halted. Hemlock ran forward, firing at more of the creatures as he shoved the dead one over the side with his boot. It took a mighty heave.

  Gavrikov grabbed him and hauled him back in as the ramp continued to retract. The hatch clanged shut an instant before more bat-creatures thumped against the back of it.

  Ankari looked past the dripping men, meeting Lauren’s eyes, raising her brows slightly as if to ask if she’d seen the ramp retract without anyone hitting the button. Lauren nodded once. She had seen.

  “Think we’ll continue our patrol from in here,” Lieutenant Sparks said.

  “Probably not a bad idea,” Ankari said. Her gaze drifted toward the front of the shuttle, where sheets of rain streaked diagonally across the view screen. More howls came from outside, countless bats agitated by the storm—or the invaders in their territory. “I hope Viktor and the others are all right.”

  • • • • •

  Rain spattered the muddy canyon, the ground overgrown with giant ferns, carpets of moss, and thorny vines that clawed at Tick’s clothing as he sought a route through it all. He wore an Eytect device to give him night vision, and it helped somewhat. He preferred to track with the naked eye, but his naked eye wasn’t very good at seeing in the dark. Besides, he wasn’t technically tracking anything yet. At least, nobody had given him that assignment. Mandrake
had told him to take point and look for caves after Ms. Keys had showed them a holo of the canyon and pointed upriver.

  Figuring she expected her druids to be here, Tick watched for trails and evidence that other humans had been crazy enough to walk through this morass recently. The deep canyon would, he admitted, be a good place to hide from passersby, both ground-based and aerial. With the dense canopy stretching high overhead, a shuttle flying by would struggle to sense life forms below. In other words, he could imagine some secret druid home tucked back here somewhere, inhospitable surroundings or not.

  Now and then, Tick heard the gurgle of a stream flowing through the center of the canyon, though the brush was too dense to catch sight of it. Howls drifted down from that canopy, the sounds made by critters he did not recognize. He had only been on Sturm once before, and they’d been about four hundred miles away from this spot. Much of the flora was similar, so he supposed the fauna would be too. Which meant those raptors could be skulking about.

  Thuds and grunts came from behind him as someone pushed his way through the foliage to catch up with Tick.

  “See any druids yet?” Striker asked.

  “Not yet. I reckon druids are too smart to be out in weather like this.”

  “But mercenaries aren’t, eh?”

  “Not that I’ve noticed.”

  “Is it hard to notice things with that tail dangling in your eyes?” Striker flicked a finger at Tick’s cap.

  “The tail is dangling down my neck, thank you, and if you mock my coon skin, I’ll take it off and beat you with it.”

  “That’s not a nice thing for a hero’s sidekick to say to him.”

  Tick gave him a flat look. Striker winked, not noticeably bothered by the rain plastering his short hair to his head and dripping from his chin. He had a helmet strapped to his pack but didn’t seem to have considered that it could protect him from rain as well as laser bolts.